Schneider Electric has significantly intensified the manufacturing and production capacity of its prefabricated data center factory in Barcelona, increasing it from 7,000 m2to 12,000 m2in response to accelerating customer demand for data center solutions. Based in Sant Boi de Llobregat, Barcelona, one of the leading European locations for the design, production and integration of Schneider Electric's EcoStruxure modular data center portfolio, the factory and logistics center now offers an additional 5000m2of dedicated production space, meeting demanding customer requirements for speed to market, predictability and resilient data center solutions.
Driven by growing customer demand for computing and artificial intelligence (AI), which PwC Global predicts could contribute up to $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, the Sant Boi plant is now Schneider Electric's largest manufacturing facility for prefabricated modular data centers in Europe. Analyst Omdia forecasts that global sales of prefabricated modular data center systems will reach $8.6 billion by 2027.
Furthermore, the investment has enabled the company to double its end-to-end production, integration, testing, and shipping capabilities for both its all-in-one modular data centers and prefabricated power modules. This includes key power system components such as three-phase uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), low-voltage (LV) and medium-voltage (MV) equipment, circuit breakers, and switchgear.
“Prefabricated modular data centers are one of the most efficient and sustainable ways to design and develop high-performance data center capacity at speed and scale, while ensuring less waste, optimized production, and reduced carbon footprint,” said Marc Garner, SVP, Secure Power & Data Center Business, Schneider Electric, Europe. “By expanding our end-to-end production capacity in Barcelona, we are strengthening our supply chain capabilities at a time of unprecedented growth, ensuring that customers in Europe have access to fast, predictable, and high-quality data center solutions that can be designed and operational in as little as 24 weeks.”
Schneider Electric recently announced a multi-year, $3 billion (€2.76 billion) agreement with Compass Datacenters, one of Inc. Magazine's 5,000 fastest-growing companies, to integrate the respective supply chains of both organizations and manufacture prefabricated modular data center solutions quickly, cost-effectively, and at scale.
In response to the growing demand for AI, this 5-year agreement has enabled Schneider Electric and Compass Datacenters to supply modular and highly scalable data centers that offer simplified design, streamlined manufacturing, and the ability to be easily deployed in a multitude of remote environments.
Schneider Electric's investment in the Sant Boi factory fully reflects this strategy and will provide European customers with the ability to expand their data center operations in the Tier 1 and Tier 2 data center markets, and accelerate deployment times using best-in-class manufacturing and testing capabilities.
In addition, the Sant Boi factory offers a highly optimized production environment that allows organizations to create standardized or customizable data center clusters with a high computing workload, where solutions can be prefabricated power modules or combine power, cooling and IT infrastructure into an advanced solution ready for deployment.
